Witchcraft Murder Trial Begins

Opening arguments will begin today in the weird witchcraft murder trial of Carla Mendez, accused of the Silver Lake murder of a local snow-cone vendor who she believed had put an evil spell on Mendez' female lover.

Los Angeles Police Department Northeast Detectives found snow-cone man Norberto Castro’s battered body next to a Jetta on Allesandro Street in Silver Lake on July 13, 2005. The LAPD’s fugitive task force picked up Mendez, 22, on February 23, 2006, visiting a friend in South L.A. Cops had apprehended her lover, Maria Gomez, five months earlier after fingerprint evidence placed her at the scene.

According to Gomez' friend Sogui Godinez, Gomez concocted a sinister plan to kill the friendly, 43-year-old Mexican immigrant after consulting a bruja — a Mexican witch doctor operating out of a botanica in the city's sprawling immigrant community.

Gomez decided Castro had cast a spell on her as punishment for spurning his advances. Swept up in her eerie beliefs, police believe that Gomez decided her only escape from the "hex" was to murder Castro.